This page is a compendium of items of interest - news stories, scurrilous rumors, links, academic papers, damnable prevarications, rants and amusing anecdotes - about LAUSD and/or public education that didn't - or haven't yet - made it into the "real" 4LAKids blog and weekly e-newsletter at http://www.4LAKids.blogspot.com . 4LAKidsNews will be updated at arbitrary random intervals.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

SCHOOL SEGREGATION ISN'T JUST REALITY BUT ALSO PART OF THE LESSON AT ONE NEW YORK CITY HIGH SCHOOL

Teacher Sarah Camiscoli with students at the Urban Assembly Bronx Academy of Letters.

Credit: Beth Fertig/WNYC

December 18, 2015 · 10:30 AM EST ::It’s
hard to say the Urban Assembly Bronx Academy of
Letters isn’t diverse. Almost all of its approximately 600 students
are black and Hispanic, including many from different countries. But there’s
one demographic the students rarely see.

"Honestly I know it sounds
racist, but I’ve never seen so many white kids in the school," says 11th
grader Leslie Sigaran.

Sigaran is taking a new elective
class on integration in public schools. Their teacher, Sarah Camiscoli, said
she started the project partly in response to a 2014 study by UCLA researchers
finding New York has some of the most racially segregated public schools in the
United States. The chancellor recently decided to allow new admissions plans for seven schools
to encourage diversity, but some groups want a more comprehensive approach.

"This is such an important
debate happening in New York City," Camiscoli explained. "I wasn’t
hearing their voice in the conversation," she says, of students.